


Gamzee: Make yourself scarce.

by rainbowBarnacle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Deathfic, Gore, Other, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Sadstuck, Veilstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowBarnacle/pseuds/rainbowBarnacle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>'You stumble into a room, slap a palm against the button that will seal the door, and slump in the nearest corner. It’s dark here, lit only with green computer lights, empty save for some specimen tubes and some consoles, but you aren’t comforted. This isn’t a hiding spot so much as it is a place to rest until he finds you.</i>
</p>
<p><i>You’re the last, and that’s the most terrifying thought of all.'</i> </p>
<p>A Veilstuck fic in which Karkat decides to mercy cull his friends before Jack Noir can get to them first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gamzee: Make yourself scarce.

You run through a maze of rust and wire mesh and buzzing lights. You lost your flip flops ages ago; one of your feet is bleeding purple everywhere from where you stubbed a toe and cracked a nail. You are a long streak of terror, a sprinting scream; fear sings under your skin and hums in your bones, it unfurls leathery palpitating wings in your ribcage and chokes you until all the noise you can make are raspy, terrified pants, and for these reasons you don’t even feel your toe or any of the other bumps and scrapes you got scrambling through the guts of this place.

The halls are quiet, ruthlessly so. Every shadow watches and waits, calculating, precise. You feel eyes on you and your skin prickles. Your lungs feel like tiny little worthless bags; you drag in as much air as you can but it’s never enough, never enough, and you’re dizzy, weakening. You haven’t slept in days and it’s been ages since you had a pie; you are rattled down to your nerves and everything is confusing.

You stumble into a room, slap a palm against the button that will seal the door, and slump in the nearest corner. It’s dark here, lit only with green computer lights, empty save for some specimen tubes and some consoles, but you aren’t comforted. This isn’t a hiding spot so much as it is a place to rest until he finds you.

You’re the last, and that’s the most terrifying thought of all.

Equius was first. You’d had a sick feeling in your guts and hid in the vents. It was sheer dumbfuck accident that you should watch your favorite blue brother get gutted, that sickle moving sharp and sure, his insides looping out as he trembled and gasped. You watched while Karkat whispered to him, the same way you would with some frightened, dying seal that washed up on your beach that you had to mercy cull, until those beautiful bruised eyes dulled over and his breath stilled.

Terezi was messier—an hour later you caught them dueling in the ectolab, and the two of them were as black as pitch, you could see it crackling off them as they turned that little room completely upside down. It was over in less than ten minutes, that sickle plunged deep in her breast while their mouths were still mashed together and kissing violently. You hid, silent and unable to look away, as he eased her lifeless body to the floor and ate her heart and her tongue, his mouth all smeary with teal and bright clots of red from his bitten lips.

After that you hid deeper, where there weren’t any windows, where you could only hear. Eridan begged, that much you knew; you heard it through a wall, Karkat’s voice buzzing low and Eridan’s voice clear as a star, all hurt betrayal and dizzy fear, tripping all over his w’s, “What the fuck, Kar, what are you even sayin’, you ain’t talkin’ sense—oh god. Oh god don’t do this, _please_ , we’re _friends_ for fuck’s sake—”

Tavros’s end was a short, sharp, angry scream that cut through you while you sprawled in the ceiling. You heard Karkat cry out at almost the same time, grating and pained, and from that point on when you got your sneak on, you started glimpsing red smudges here and there where he’d been. You found Vriska’s head stuffed in the loadgaper, and just outside you found her wings torn and smashed on the floor, shedding miniscule iridescent scales that stuck all over your hands.

Sometime later you found Nepeta curled up lifeless in her yarn pile without a mark on her save for green tears painting her cheeks, a red thumbprint smudging one. You didn’t find out what happened to Kanaya until you came across her limp body on a stairwell, her neck broken and a big hole in her chest where her heart should have been. You found Feferi’s trident, the tips all red, and a few minutes later you found Feferi in the computer room twitching and bleeding out all over your horn pile, messy hair _everywhere_ and her sharp little crystalline teeth stained fuchsia.

You never found Sollux. You only knew he was gone when the rattling and explosions stopped and a stark and terrible silence cloaked the meteor.

Now it’s just you, and he knows it’s just you, and he knows that you know it’s just you.

He’s hurt. He’s flipped his pan and lost some blood, he probably isn’t thinking straight. He’s small and compact, your little strawberry brother, tiny claws and tiny horns and tiny teeth set all neat and straight in his jaw. You have the wicked capacity in you, you could wad him up like he was tinfoil, snap his neck sharp and quick and he would be gone before you could finish whimpering apologies at him.

Even as you think it, you know you as sure as starlight you couldn’t. Not in a million sweeps, never him.

The knowledge settles over you like a lead blanket as the door hisses open and he flicks the lights on.

You gape. Your brother is an awful rainbow mess, so much so he has _layers_ of it and you can’t see any gray skin underneath. It makes his hair stick up in drying clumps and drips down his sickle, fresh and wet in some places and drying into some awful noncolor in others.

It’s strange to see his clothing all fucked up when he always took such pains to keep himself covered. His shirt is in tatters, there are holes in his jeans, and his arms are exposed and bleeding from dozens of little cuts. He has one hand pressed to a wound in his side. One eye is almost swollen shut. His ears are bitten all to hell, and there’s a crack going down one horn that makes you hiss in a startled breath through your teeth.

“Hi, Gamzee.”

He is exhausted all the way through. His eyes lock on yours and you watch them change, the quiet calm you’d seen in him all this time shifting over to a deep and horrible sadness.

“Hey, brother.”

“This is my fault,” he whispers. “This is all my fucking fault, if I’d only thought ahead I wouldn’t have to _do_ this—”

His voice cracks and all you can do is look at him helplessly.

“We’re the only ones left on this shitheap.”

You swallow hard. “Yeah.”

“It’ll be okay. I can make it quick. It’s either me or him, and I’ve _seen_ what he’ll do to you.” He is shaking, the words coming out all harsh and rushed as he tries to regain his former unwavering certainty. “This is better, I promise.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, your breath rattling through you. “Will it hurt?”

“Oh god, Gamzee.” His knees hit the floor and the sickle clatters after. He drags you close and wraps you up in his arms and rocks you, and you let him even though it must hurt like hell. Up close he’s fever warm and smells terrible and he’s covered in crustyslick gore. You don’t give one damn.

“You won’t feel a thing,” he murmurs and strokes your curls. “I fucking swear it. I’ll be so fast you won’t even have time to think about it, all you have to do is lie back.”

“What about you?”

“He won’t get me either. I’ll do you, and then I’ll do me, and then this whole mess will be behind us. It’ll all be okay, man, I’ll make this okay. I’m so sorry.”

You pap his back once and his arms tighten briefly before he starts easing you back. You hesitate, but his hands are gentle on you as they trace over your face, moving your hair out of your eyes. “You’re tired too, aren’t you, bro? Yeah. That’s it, just lie back. I hear you, man, I’m tired too. Fucking exhausted. In a way, I’m kind of relieved it’s all over.”

You’re shaking, but you can hear the sureness returning to his voice, sense his earlier resolve wrapping around him. It’s sort of contagious, you realize, just as long as you keep your thoughts from straying too far ahead. He makes sure you don’t, stroking your horns and keeping his eyes locked on yours, and wow, this is more intimate than anybody ever got with you. A weary smile tugs at his lips and you find yourself mirroring it.

“Always wanted to protect you,” he whispers, and covers your eyes gently with one hand. For a split second, the lazy pale glow around your heart diffuses and you flinch and whimper. “Shhhhh. Shh. It’s okay.”

You bite your lower lip, and he brushes a kiss against your hairline. “Pity you, man,” you mumble.

“Pity you too.”

You don’t hear him pick up the sickle.


End file.
